The integration of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy into the electrosurgical knife used during breast-conserving surgery: Determining and overcoming the challenge of tissue debris adhering to the ‘smart’ electrosurgical knife

Among women, breast cancer has the highest incidence rate of all types of cancer worldwide. For 80% of these patients, a treatment option is the surgical procedure known as breast conserving surgery (BCS). Re-excision is required in 10-60% of these patients, as positive margins are encountered post-operatively, showing the need of an intra...

Evaluating the Translation of Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy into Hyperspectral Imaging: Bridging the gaps between the two technologies

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer in women with about 1.7 million new cases reported worldwide in 2012. The two main types of surgical treatment for breast cancer are mastectomy and lumpectomy. In mastectomy, the entire affected breast is excised whereas in lumpectomy only the tumor along with a rim of healthy tissue is excised. This...

Evaluation of a smart electrosurgical knife: assessing the feasibility of tumour detection with Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy in breast conserving surgery

Every year, 1.7 million woman are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide. Breast Conserving Surgery (BCS) – where not the whole breast but only the tumour is dissected – is the most common and preferable treatment for these woman. However, 20 to 55% of the patients’ needs a second surgery because of positive margins. A dissected tumour has a...